This article is now transcribed below, here on the BullionStar website.

Central bank gold price suppression is a well-documented fact. Central banks have a long and colorful history of manipulating the gold price. This manipulation has taken many shapes and forms over the years. It also shouldn’t be surprising that central banks intervene in the gold market given that they also intervene in all other financial markets. It would be naive to think that the gold market should be any different.

n fact, gold is a special case. Gold to central bankers is like the sun to vampires. They are terrified of it, yet in some ways they are in awe of it. Terrified since gold is an inflation barometer and an indicator of the relative strength of fiat currencies. The gold price influences interest rates and bond prices. But central bankers (who know their job) are also in awe of gold since they respect and understand gold’s value and power within the international monetary system and the importance of gold as a reserve asset.

So central banks are keenly aware of gold, they hold large quantities of it in their vaults as a store of value and as financial insurance, but they are also permanently on guard against allowing a fully free market for gold in which they would not have at least some form of influence over price direction and market sentiment.

The Central Bankers’ Central Bank

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) crops up frequently in gold price manipulation as the central coordination venue and the guiding hand behind a lot of the gold price suppression plans. This is true in all decades from the 1960s right the way through to the 2000s. If you want to know about central bank gold price manipulation, the BIS is a good place to start. Unfortunately the BIS is a law onto itself and does not answer to anyone, except its central banks members.

In the 1960s, central bank manipulation of the gold price was conducted in the public domain, predominantly through the London Gold Pool. This was in the era of a fixed official gold price of $35 an ounce. Here the US Treasury and a consortium of central banks from Western Europe explicitly kept the gold price near $35 an ounce, coordinating their operation from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, while using the Bank of England in London as a transaction agent. This price manipulation broke down in March 1968 when the US Treasury ran out of good delivery gold, which triggered the move to a “free market” gold price.

Central banks continued to suppress gold prices in the 1970s both through efforts to demonetize gold and also dump physical gold into the market to dampen price action. These sales were unilateral e.g. US Treasury gold sales in 1975 and over 1978-1979, and also coordinated (and orchestrated by the US) e.g. IMF gold sales across 1976-1980.

Gold Pool 2.0 – Force it Down Quick and Hard

Collusion to manipulate the price also went underground, for example in late 1979 and early 1980 when the gold price was rocketing higher, the same central banks from the London Gold Pool again met at the opaque BIS in Switzerland at the behest of the US Treasury and Federal Reserve in an attempt to launch a new and secretive Gold Pool to reign in the gold price. This was essentially a revival of the old gold pool, or Gold Pool 2.0.

These meetings, which are not very well known about, were of the G10 central bank governors, i.e. at the highest levels of world finance. All of the discussions are documented in black and white in the Bank of England archives and can be read on the BullionStar website.

Gold for Oil: A Novel Twist to the Gold Pool Operation

The wording in these discussions is very revealing and show the contempt which central bankers feel about a freely functioning gold market.

Phrases used in these meetings include:

“there is a need to break the psychology of the market” and “no question of any permanent stabilisation of the gold price, merely at a critical time holding it within a target area” and “to stabilise the price within a moving band” and “it would be easy and nice for central banks to force the price down hard and quickly“.

And these meetings of top central bankers were in early 1980, 11 years after the London Gold Pool and 8 years after the US Treasury reneged on its commitment in August 1971 to convert foreign holdings of US dollars into gold.

Whether this new BIS gold pool was rolled out in the 1980s is open to debate, but it was discussed across the board for months by the Governors at the BIS, and may have been introduced in a form which would provide physical gold to the oil producers (gold for oil trades) without putting a rocket under the gold price. Their main worry was to allow the Middle Eastern oil producers to acquire some gold for oil without pushing the gold price up.

The Bank of England was also involved in the 1980s in influencing prices in the London Gold Fix auctions, in what an ex Bank of England staffer described euphemistically as ‘helping the fixes’. And the Bank of England has even at times used terminology in the 1980s such as “smoothing operations” and “stabilisation operations” when referring to coordinated central bank efforts to control the gold price.

Paper Gold Ponzi

Probably two of the most influential changes on the gold market in the modern era are structural changes to the gold market which channel gold demand away from physical gold and into paper gold. These two changes were the introduction of unallocated accounts and fractionally backed gold holdings in the London Gold market from the 1980s onwards, and the introduction of gold futures trading in the US in January 1975.

In unallocated gold trading in the London OTC market, gold trades are cash-settled and there is rarely any physical delivery of gold. The trading positions are merely claims against bullion banks who don’t hold anywhere near the amount of gold to back up the claims. Unallocated bullion is therefore just a synthetic paper gold position that provides exposure to the gold price but doesn’t drive demand for physical gold.

When gold futures were launched in the US in January 1975, the primary reason for their introduction, according to a US State Department cable at the time, was to create an alternative to the physical market that would syphon off demand for gold, creating trading that would dwarf the physical market, and which would also ramp up volatility which in turn would deter investors from investing in physical gold. Gold futures are also fractionally backed and overwhelmingly cash-settled, and their trading volumes are astronomical multiples of actual delivery volumes.

Central banks as regulators of financial markets are therefore ultimately responsible for allowing the emergence of fractional reserve gold trading in London and New York. This trading undermines the demand for physical gold and allows the world gold price to be formed in these synthetic gold trading venues. Price discovery is not happening in physical gold markets. Its is happening in the London OTC (unallocated) and COMEX derivative markets. So this is also a form of gold price manipulation since the central banks know how these markets function, but they do nothing to crack down on what are essentially gold ponzi schemes.

Imagine, for example, that central banks were as tough on paper gold as they seem to be now on crypto currency markets. Now imagine if central banks outlawed fractional gold trading or scare-mongered about it in the same way that they do about crypto currencies? What would happen is that the gold market participants would panic and unwind their paper positions, precipitating a disconnect between paper gold and physical gold markets. So by being lenient on the fractional structure of trading in the gold markets, central banks and their regulators are implicitly encouraging activities that have a dampening effect on the gold price.

Gold Lending – A Riddle wrapped in a Mystery inside an Enigma

The gold lending market, mostly centred in London, is another area in which central banks have the ability to cap the gold price. Here central banks transfer their physical gold holdings to bullion banks and this physical gold then enters the market. These transactions can either be in the form of gold loans or gold swaps. This extra supply of gold through the loans and swaps disturbs the existing supply demand balance, and so has a depressing effect on the gold price.

The gold lending market is totally opaque and secretive with no obligatory or voluntary reporting by either central bank lenders or bullion bank borrowers. The Bank of England has a major role in the gold lending market as the gold used in lending is almost all sourced from the central bank custody holding in the Bank of England’s vaults.

There is therefore zero informational efficiency in gold lending, and that’s the way the central banks like it. furthermore, freedom of information requests about gold lending are almost always shot down by central banks, even sometimes on ‘national security’ grounds.

Many central banks have lent out their gold long ago, and just hold a ‘gold receivable’ on their balance sheet, which is a claim against a bullion bank or bullion banks. These bullion banks roll over the liability to the central bank for years on end and the original gold is long gone. Since central bank gold is never independently audited, there is no independent confirmation of any of the gold that any central banks claim they have.

Gold receivables are another fiction that allows central banks to fly under the radar in the gold lending market, and central banks go to great lengths to make sure the market does not know the size and existence of outstanding gold lending and swapped gold positions.

In Febuary 1999, the BIS was again the nexus for secretive discussions about the gold market when a number of the large powerful central banks basically ordered the IMF to drop an accounting change that would have split out gold and gold receivables into two separate line items on central bank balance sheets and accounting statements. These discussions are documented in the IMF document which is available to see here.

This accounting change would have shone a light on to the scale of central bank gold lending around the world, information which would have moved gold prices far higher.

Gold Loans and Gold Swaps – Highly Market Sensitive

However, a group of the large central banks in Europe comprising the Bank of England, the Bundesbank, the Bank de France and the European Central Bank (ECB) applied pressure to torpedo this plan as they said that “information on gold loans and swaps was highly market sensitive” and that the IMF should “not require the separate disclosure of such information but should instead treat all monetary gold assets including gold on loan or subject to swap agreements, as a single data item.”

Central banks also at times sell large quantities of gold, such as the Swiss gold sales in the early the 2000s, and the Bank of England gold sales in the late 1990s.While the details of such gold sales are always shrouded in secrecy, and the motivations may be varied, such as bullion bank bailouts or redistribution of holdings to other central banks, the impact of these gold sales announcements usually has a negative impact on the gold price. So gold sales announcements are another tactic that central banks use to at times keep the pressure on the price.

There are many examples of central bankers discussing interventions in the gold market. In July 1998, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testified before the US Congress saying that “central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.”

In June 2005, William R. White of the BIS in Switzerland, said that one of the aims of central bank cooperation was to “joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful.”

In 2008, the BIS at its headquarters in Switzerland even stated in a presentation to central bankers that one of the services it offers is interventions in the gold market.

In 2011, one of the gold traders from the BIS even stated on his LinkedIn profile that one of his responsibilities was managing the liquidity for interventions. After this was published, he quickly changed his LinkedIn profile.

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This is Part 2 of a two-part series. The series focuses on collusive discussions and meetings that took place between the world’s most powerful central bankers in late 1979 and 1980 in an attempt to launch a central bank Gold Pool cartel to manipulate and control the free market price of gold. The meetings centered around the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basle, Switzerland.

Part 2 takes up where Part 1 left off, and begins by looking at developments in the BIS Gold Pool discussions during January 1980, a month in which the US dollar gold price rocketed more than 60% during a three-week period to reach a then record of $850 per ounce. Part 2 then looks at how the discussions involving these central banks evolved over the remainder of 1980 and 1981 as key high level central bankers continued to call for intervention into the gold market.

Part 2 also looks at evidence that central bankers party to the discussions began advocating gold for oil exchanges between the West and the Saudis, exchanges which would provide real wealth (gold) to the Arabs in exchange for oil flowing to the West, while simultaneously keeping a lid on the gold price.

A series of meetings of the world’s most powerful central bank governors were held in late 1979 at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) office of BIS Chairman and President Jelle Zijlstra in Basle, Switzerland. The objective of the meetings was discussion of a central bank consortium that would operate a collusive Gold Pool to manipulate the price of gold. Note that this was more than 11 years after the London Gold Pool had collapsed in March 1968.

At the IMF annual conference in Belgrade in early October 1979, the US monetary authority delegation in the form of Paul Volcker, William Miller, Tony Solomon, and Henry Wallich approached Fritz Leutwiler, Chairman of the Swiss National Bank, and discussed a proposal to launch a joint central bank gold selling operation.

During the discussions at the BIS and between the central bankers at various locations, Zijlstra, who was BIS President until the end of 1981, and Leutwiler, who became BIS President in January 1982, were both strongly in favour of launching a new joint central bank gold pool to manipulate the gold price.

The oil-producing cartel OPEC was at that time, “increasingly concerned that gold was outpacing oil”, but Al Quraishi, Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) had made an assurance that the Saudi’s “would not rock the boat” and buy gold on the market if a new gold pool was activated. However, Al Quraishi and SAMA were still eager to “diversify” the reinvestment of the Saudi oil revenues into gold.

The Bank of England recorded market intelligence in October 1979 that the “USA was planning to sell 10 million ounces of gold in four separate unannounced operations” before the end of 1979 so as to “placate the Saudi Arabians.“

The Bank of England’s foreign exchange and gold specialist at that time, John Sangster, thought that there was“a need to break the psychologyof ‘the market can only go one way and that is up’.”

Sangster’s view was also that there was “no question of anypermanent stabilisation of the gold price, merelyat a critical time holding it within a target area”, an operation he called a “smoothing operation”.

A meeting to discuss a new collusive gold pool took place in the BIS office of Zijlstra on Monday 12 November 1979, whose invitees (in addition to Jelle Zijlstra) were Gordon Richardson, Governor of the Bank of England, Cecil de Strycker, Governor of the National Bank of Belgium, Fritz Leutwiler, Chairman of the Swiss National Bank, Bernard Clappier, Governor of the Banque de France, and Otmar Emminger, President of the Bundesbank.

A follow-on meeting about the collusive new gold pool took place in the BIS office of Zijlstra on Monday 10 December 1979, attended by Zjilstra, Kit McMahon of the Bank of England, Otmar Emminger, outgoing President of the Bundesbank, Karl Otto Pohl, incoming Bundesbank President, de la Geniere, the incoming Governor of the Banque de France, de Strycker, Governor of the Belgian central bank, Leutwiler, Chairman of the Swiss National Bank, and Rene Larre, BIS General Manager.

The December meeting, which was facilitated by BIS general manager Rene Larre, also revealed that “European central banks would intend to buy back in due course any gold they sold”, that the Gold Pool could be funded by buying gold first so as to create an inventory of physical gold to use for selling operations, and that in McMahon’s words “if the scheme were to be simply a BIS one, publicity would not necessarily, orperhaps desirably, arise”

Based on the detailed briefing of the content of that meeting at the BIS on 10 December, which was written by the Bank of England’s Kit McMahon for the benefit of the Bank of England Governor Gordon Richardson, the proposed new gold pool, among other things, would sell gold “only when gold was relatively strong and the dollar relatively weak and [buy] only in the reverse circumstances.”

In the 10 December 1979 meeting at the BIS, the Bundesbank was against the Gold Pool plan due to what Bundesbank President Otmar Emminger attributed to opposition from the BundesbankCentral Bank Council. However, the Bundesbank was thought, by the Bank of England’s Sangster, to be against the Gold Pool primarily as a tactical way to force the US Fed to address the underlying problems of a weak US dollar and high inflation.

The Banque de France, which had been in favour of the Gold Pool scheme prior to October 1979, also came out in the 10 December meeting as being against the scheme due to what Banque de France governor De la Geniere described as “great political dangers…of selling any French gold” indirectly through a Gold Pool. However, Sangster also thought the Banque de France was more likely to be tactically backing the Germans so as to put pressure on the Fed to first address inflationary problems.

As per Part 1, a number of internal documents from the Bank of England are cited below. These documents provide a unique road map on the evolution of the collusive discussions at the BIS and the thinking of the Bank of England executives involved in and supporting the discussions. Documents are rendered in blue text and italics, with bold, underlining, and a few cases of red text added where appropriate.

January 1980 BIS Gold Pool Meeting

Following the Gold Pool meeting at Zjilstra’s office in the BIS headquarters on 10 December 1979, the central bank governors next met at the BIS in Basle on 7 January 1980 during their monthly scheduled ‘Basle Weekend’. The afternoon London Gold Fix was set at $431 on 10 December 1979, but by 4 January 1980 it was already 36% higher at $588.

In preparation for the January meeting about the proposed Gold Pool, which took place on Monday 7 January 1980, John Sangster, the Bank of England’s foreign exchange and gold specialist, wrote the following briefing document titled “SECRET” to the attention of the Governor’s Private Secretary (G.P.S.) as well as to the attention of Bank of England Executive Director Kit McMahon. The Governor of the Bank of England at that time was Gordon Richardson.

To recap from Part 1, Christopher McMahon, known as ‘Kit’ McMahon, became Deputy Governor of the Bank of England on 1 March 1980, taking over that position from Jasper Hollom. Prior to becoming Deputy Governor, McMahon was an executive director at the Bank of England from 1970 to 1980. McMahon signed his internal Bank of England memos and correspondence with the initials ‘CWM’, short for Christopher William McMahon. McMahon left the Bank of England in 1986 to take up the role of Chief Executive and Deputy Chairman of Midland Bank. Midland Bank was taken over by HSBC in 1992. See profiles of McMahon here and here.

Gordon Richardson was Governor of the Bank of England for 10 years from 1973 to 1983. Before that, he was a non-executive director of the Bank of England between 1967 and 1973. Richard was chairman of J. Henry Schroder Wagg from 1962 to 1972, and chairman of Schroders from 1966 to 1973. After leaving the Bank of England, Richardson went on to be a director of Saudi International Bank in London. He also headed the influential Group of Thirty (G30) central bank lobbyist group, and was chairman of Morgan Stanley International.

John Sangster’s full name was John Laing Sangster, hence he signed his internal Bank of England memos and analysis with the initials ‘JLS’.

G10 plus Switzerland

Sangster’s secret memo to McMahon and Richardson was written on Friday 4 January 1980, a day on which the afternoon Gold Fix came in at $588 per ounce. The memo addressed developments in the gold price and discussed potential joint central bank intervention into the gold market. Hand written at the top are the words “The Governor has seen : copy in Basle Dossier JB 7/1“. JB is the Bank of England’s John Balfour who was also copied on the document, and who was a Bank of England alternate director at the BIS at that time.

The memo has 6 numbered paragraphs, paragraphs 5 and 6 of which are most interesting:

SECRET

4.1.80

G.P.S.

Copies to : Mr McMahon, Mr Balfour, Mr Byatt

GOLD

5. Since the market has further extended itself, any central bank operation would now have greater chance of success. But it would have to be a co-operative effort preferable on a G.10 plus Switzerland basis. Obviously the contributors, with the possible exception of the USA, would go into the operation in the hope and intention of subsequently recapturing their gold. But I think the new “pool” must face the possibility that they might not recapture some or all of their gold – in which case they would have to envisage the operation as a general contribution to the struggle against inflation.

6. If a G.10 plus Switzerland operation were mounted on a pro rata basis, our share would be just under 3%. If the Italians (who sometimes talk as if the loss of one ounce of their gold would mean the end of the world) and the Swedes (very low gold holders) dropped out, our share would be about 3 1/4 %. If the Japanese declined on the excuse of a very low gold proportion, then I think we could do so too.

4th January 1980

JLS“

The G10 that Sangster mentions refers to the Group of 10 highly industrialised nations which consisted of the USA, UK, France, West Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Canada, Sweden, and Japan. The G10 as a grouping was formed in 1962 when these 10 countries participated in the IMF’s General Arrangements to Borrow (GAB) plan. Switzerland became associated with the GAB in 1964 but the name remained the G10. The G10 also participated in the Smithsonian Agreement in December 1971, with all other members agreeing to peg their currencies against the US dollar.

As readers will recall from Part 1, this list of 11 countries, as represented by their central banks, comprised the group of central banks that either advocated the gold market intervention meetings in late 1979 (the US), were present in the BIS Gold Pool meetings in November and December 1979 (Switzerland, West Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium), or that were to be consulted after the December meeting. As per the December 1979 meeting:

“The meeting ended with Leutwiler saying he would approach the Canadians and Japanese to see how they felt about the idea while Zijlstra would talk to the Italians. All would then think further about it and revert in January.“

No mention of the Swedes, but, based on Sangster’s comment above, the Swedes were considered to be “very low gold holders“.

As per the 12 November 1979 Gold Pool meeting, there are no meeting minutes in the public domain for the 7 January 1980 Gold Pool meeting, with the BIS Archives office claiming it did not have such minutes. When asked about minutes from a 7 January 1980 meeting, the BIS Archives deflected the question and misdirected the answer, saying only that:

“The Gold Pool came to an end in 1968, so I take it that you are referring to meetings of the Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee. We do have some minutes for this meeting, but unfortunately not for the period which interests you.”

However, London Times correspondent Peter Norman, in Basle that day to cover the “Basle Weekend”, did write a report on the outcome of the BIS governors’ January meeting on gold. In his article titled “Bankers Rule Out Sale of Reserves to Hold Back Rush into Gold”, dated Monday 7 January 1980 (a day on which the gold price closed at $634), Norman wrote:

“Western central bank governors today ruled out any concerted sales of gold from reserves to quell the speculative rush of funds into the metal on the world’s bullion markets.

The idea, which has been suggested at various times in the past few months by Herr Fritz Leutwiler, the Swiss National Bank president, foundered when it became apparent that it would receive no support from the West German Federal Bank and the Bank of France.As these central banks have the second and third largest gold reserves in the Western world, their agreement was crucial to the launching of a concerted sale.”

“It appears that the gyrations of the gold markets were discussed at some length yesterday at the regular monthly meetings of central bankers here.”

“Behind the decision not to introduce a concerted programme of gold sales lies a hope that the speculative fever of the past few days will burn itself out and that the price will fall sharply of its own accord to administer a salutary shock to speculators.

There is also the sober consideration that nobody knows how much gold would need to be dumped on the market to achieve the desired result.“

Norman only refers to ‘sales of gold’ and not a Gold ‘Pool’ since knowledge of the Gold Pool discussions was not in the public domain at that time. The reference in the London Times’ January 1980 report to the West German and French central bankers still being against the launch of a gold intervention operation gels with the view attributed to the Bundesbank and Banque de France during the December 1979 BIS meeting.

The G5 Gold Meeting – Washington

However, this did not stop further discussions on gold market intervention, since exactly one week later on Monday 14 January in Washington DC, the deputy finance ministers of the G5 convened a secret meeting to also discuss a plan for joint central bank gold sales. In the 1970s, the G5 (Group of 5) referred to the world’s then five largest economies i.e. US, UK, Japan, West Germany and France.

This meeting was covered by a New York Times report, titled “Concerted Gold Sales Discussed” and filed in Washington DC on Wednesday 16 January 1980, a day on which the PM Gold Price closed at $760:

“The possibility of concerted sales of gold by central banks from the leading industrial nations was discussed at a secret meeting in Washingtonlast Mondayby deputy finance ministers from the United States, West Germany, France, Britain and Japan.

The United States Treasury, confirming reports of the meeting that have just leaked out, said discussions were not confined to gold, and that discussions covers a ‘ wide range’ of international monetary issues.

European sources reported that there was as yet no consensus on the gold sales, with France and Germany opposed and the United States, Britain and Japan in favour, but with varying degrees of enthusiasm.”

As per the London Times report on 7 January, the New York Times report of 16 January referred to sales of gold but not to the secretive Gold Pool discussions. The New York Times also recorded the West Germans and French as being non-cooperative about joint gold market intervention.

On Thursday 17 January 1980, the London Times, in an article titled “Gold at $755 after biggest jump ever” also commented on the secret Washington DC meeting, which it said was “chaired by Anthony Solomon, Under-Secretary of the United States Treasury for Monetary Affairs“, and that “apparently there was general agreement at the meeting that political factors were totally dominating the gold markets and that there was little point in any central bank selling gold.”

Sangster’s G5 Gold Briefs

The day after this Times report, on Friday 18 January, when the gold price closed in London at $835 per ounce, John Sangster at the Bank of England sent a confidential memorandum to Kit McMahon and to the attention of the Governor Gordon Richardson, commenting on the “G5 gold briefs“, i.e. the G5 gold discussions in Washington DC between the US, UK, France, West Germany and Japan. Sangster’s memo was as follows:

Confidential

18.1.80

MR. McMAHON,

Copies to Mr. Kirbyshire, Mr. Byatt, Governors’ Private Secretary

Just a few glosses on the G5 gold briefs.

1. Whereas the earlier rise in the gold price had definitely been a factor in the dollar’s weakness, since early in the New Year the dollar has detached itself from gold.

2. But gold has been a factor in the rise in the price of other commodities. part of that rise is obviously due to the increase in international tension, but the meteoric rise in gold has almost certainly exacerbated it.

3. Now that international tension is the main factor in the gold market, any central bank action would probably be ineffective.

4. If tension eased substantially, however, central bank action need not then be unnecessary. With greater chance of success, it could be helpful in further cooling the inflationary environment.

5. I am suspicious of the thesis that any future gold pool must start with purchases. When the price starts to rise there will be too strong an inducement, and probably many would present arguments not to sell.

6. All of which seems to suggest that the only gold policy central banks could be said to have is – afraid to sell but hoping to buy in the next bear phase. Realistic perhaps, but not very satisfying.

18th January 1980(Dictated by JLS and circulated in his absence)

The ‘international tension’ referred to in Sangster’s note above most likely refers to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 and the Iranian hostage crisis that began in November 1979.

While John Sangster’s ‘glosses on the G5 gold briefs‘ memo from 18 January 1980 may have given the impression that gold market intervention was off the cards for the time being, no one told this to Fritz Leutwiler, chairman of the Swiss National Bank, because less than 2 weeks later, Leutwiler was again stirring for“central bank intervention in the gold market”.

SNB’s Leutwiler

According to Peter Norman in an article for the Times titled “Swiss call for banks to dampen gold price”, dated 31 January 1980 , a day on which the US dollar gold price closed at $653:

“Dr Fritz Leutwiler, president of the Swiss National Bank, has once again advocated central bank intervention in the gold market to curb wild price movements.

In today’s issue of Handelsblatt, the West German business daily, Dr Leutwiler was quoted as saying that central banks should exercise control over the gold price to dampen down inflationary expectations and prevent speculation on the gold market from spreading on to foreign exchange markets.”

“What has provoked Dr Leutwiler to raise the issue of central bank intervention in gold at this time remains a mystery. Neither he nor his spokesman were available for comment in Zurich today.“

“He has suggested central bank intervention in the gold market before, at the meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Belgrade last autumn and again to foreign journalists in Geneva last December. However, at the meeting of central bank governors in Basle last month [December 1979], the issue was quickly disposed of once it became apparent that neither the French nor West German central banks would support the idea.”

Note that after working for the London Times, Peter Norman subsequently moved to the Financial Times in 1988 and was the FT’s economic editor from 1992 to 1995, as well as later becoming the FT’s chief EU correspondent. Norman’s profile can be read here.

After gold in US dollars hit a peak of $850 in January 1980, the price came off but still ended January 1980 at over $700 per ounce. By the end of February 1980, the US dollar gold price was trading in the $640 range, and by March and April 1980 it was trading in the $500 range, as the Paul Volcker led US Fed’s interest rate hikes began to take effect. But by the end of June 1980, the gold price was again above $600 per ounce, and in late September 1980 gold was trading above $700 per ounce.

Exchange of Gold for Oil while the World Adjusts

In September 1980, the Bank of England Governors (the Governor and Deputy Governor) and senior executives again went on record addressing the gold price and possible coordinated central bank interventions into the gold market. The following detailed commentary document was written by the Bank of England’s John Sangster (JLS) on Wednesday 17th September 1980, a day on which the US dollar gold price closed at $673.

Although JLS addressed the September 1980 memorandum to “The Deputy Governor” and to “Anthony Loehnis”, it was also sent to the Governor, Gordon Richardson, because Richardson, along with McMahon and Loehnis, all replied to the memorandum by writing signed notes in pen on the actual circulated document, as was the convention at the time.

In the document, “Mr Loehnis” refers to Anthony Loehnis. At that time in 1980, Loehnis was an Associate Director of the Bank of England. In 1981, he became an executive director of the Bank responsible for overseas affairs. Loehnis had previous worked for the Bank of England Governor Richardson from 1977 to 1979, and Richardson had actually brought Loehnis into the Bank of England from J henry Schroder Wagg & Co, where Richardson had been chairman. Loehnis moved to SG Warburg in 1989. Loehnis’ full name was Anthony David Loehnis and hence he signed his internal Bank of England memos and correspondence with the initials ‘ADL’. See profile of Loehnis here.

SECRET

17. 9. 80

MR LOEHNIS,THE DEPUTY GOVERNOR

Central Banks and Gold

1. Last year when there was some discussion of a possible revival of the central bank gold pool, sceptics outnumbered advocates. Subsequent events justified the sceptics, although international political events played more of a part than any can have foreseen. Nevertheless a general but unspecified wariness of political disasters may be a part of the general background to scepticism in this area. The sceptic may also now point to the gold price occasionally threatening $700 again even though international tension is significantly reduced.

2. Nevertheless the price of gold is telling us something, and I do not think that we can dismiss it as merely a symptom to be ignored while continuing to concentrate on fundamentals.

3. The world is in competition for a relatively few “inflation-proof” assets, of which gold is reckoned to be chief. Its supply has been sharply reduced over the past year and the bulk of its stock is largely and firmly held by the G10 (and Switzerland).

4. In these circumstances the competition for the reduced supply – much sharpened by OPEC appetite which was not markedly present in 1973/74 – is having a disproportionate effect on the price. I well realise that if this continues for long, gold may not be such a good hedge in the short-run thereafter.

5. But the damage to inflationary psychology will by then have been done; not only in the developed countries but with OPEC, where the escalating price of this, one of the few inflation-proof assetscould become an element in their price determination. Moreover, gold seems to exercise some influence on many “hard” commodities irrespective of fundamentals. The “symptoms” may therefore be having an independent effect on price levels.

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6. It is not of course for us with our relatively low gold holding, compared with many of the G10 countries, to preach a new gold pool. We can question however whether it is helpful in the longer run for the G10 countries to continue to sit pat on all their gold (in just another manifestation of the perversity of the adjustment process) and complacently accept the effects of the rising price of gold.

7. If any operations were ever contemplated, it would have to be geared at some concept of the developing real price of gold and not attempt to hold any particular nominal level.It would almost certainly not be a “pool” with any significant potential for recovery of gold sold. Rather it would enable OPEC to acquire some modicum of the chief inflation-proof asset without an excessive rise in the price.The aim would be to prevent gold making its own particular contribution to inflation while the developed world was attempting to bring inflation down and so reduce gold’s own peculiar attraction.

8. This is not to advocate gold for oil directly; the price haggling would be too acrimonious. Market intermediation should allow the G10 to move with the price while attempting to control its pace as well as break off the experiment when possible or necessary. A positive policy for gold could be a sign of confidence on the broader issue of inflation. But I fear the general opinion will be that the risk of comparative failure is too high to warrant such action on gold.

The actual memorandum from John Sangster (JLS) to McMahon and Loehnis (and Richardson) can be seen here: Page 1 and Page 2. The links may take a little while to load first time. Since this is an extremely important document, it can also be viewed below:

There are a number of intriguing aspects to Sangster’s Bank of England document, namely that:

Gold was reckoned to be the chief “inflation-proof” asset

The bulk of the available gold stock was firmly held by the G10 (and Switzerland)

Gold demand by OPEC countries was impacting the gold price due to limited supply

The escalating price of gold was feared by Sangster to have the potential to affect OPEC’s price determination of oil

Sangster’s posed the question whether “in the longer run” the G10 countries should “sit pat on all their gold”

Sangster’s vision was for central bank operations to target the movements of the real price of gold in a moving fashion

Sangster’s did not necessarily envision a central bank Gold Pool in the traditional sense but a Pool that would “enable OPEC to acquire some modicum” of Gold “without an excessive rise in the price”. Modicum is a word which means a small quantity of something.

Sangster also wanted to “prevent gold making its own particular contribution to inflation” (i.e. to sabotage what gold does best – signal inflation) and hilariously, in typical central banker fashion, he referred to the interest in real money (gold) as a “peculiar attraction” that should be targeted.

There are 3 hand-written notes on the document. The first note at the top of page 1 in blue pen was written by Anthony Loehnis. The second note which starts at the top left of page 1 and continues at the bottom of page 1 in black pen was written by the Deputy Governor Kit McMahon. The 3rd note at the bottom of page 2 in black pen was written by the Governor Gordon Richardson.

Note from Anthony Loehnis:

“An interesting but difficult proposal. The case for rising gold prices as a locomotor rather than a manifestation of inflation would need to be made very persuasively. And I have difficulty with “the developing real price of gold”. It may nonetheless be an idea worth touring around in Basle and elsewhere, although I share the doubt in JLS’s final statement. AOL 19.9”

Note from Kit Mc Mahon:

“I have always been one of the sceptics in this area, & I am afraid I remain one.If the US would declare official convertibility buying and selling to CMIs without limit – at say $700, I believeit would be an enormously beneficial development for the international monetary system and especially for the US. But I see not the faintest chance that this will ever happen. In the absence of such a move I think it would be weak and dangerous for a group of central banks to try ad hoc to influence the price. CWM 24/9.”

Note from Gordon Richardson:

“It is surely impossible for any country to fix a gold price in present circumstance. What I am looking towards is some exchange of gold for oil while the world adjusts – although not very hopefully! G”

McMahon advocated that the US Government declare official convertibility between the US dollar and gold at $700 per ounce. This was based on a calculation of US overseas dollar liabilities tallied in a separate document. A similar calculation today would put the US dollar gold price in the many thousands.

Richardson was ‘looking towards an exchange of gold for oil’ between the gold holders (Western central banks) and the gold producers (OPEC, the most important member of which was the Saudis).

In the Bank of England Archives, there do not seem to be any relevant files relating to Gold Pool discussions or gold market intervention after the year 1980. Likewise, BIS Archives claim not to have any material whatsoever about the 1979-1980 BIS Gold Pool discussions, despite the fact that there are numerous files in the Bank of England archives proving that these discussions took place. We therefore need to look at relevant material from other sources covering the period after 1980.

Zjilstra’s Per Jacobsson lecture – September 1981

Just over 1 year after John Sangster had written his document dated 17 September 1980 to Kit McMahon, Anthony Loehnis, and Gordon Richardson, in which he envisioned a scheme that would “enable OPEC to acquire some modicum” of gold “without an excessive rise in the price”, the BIS President Jelle Zijlstra was again proposing joint action to control the gold price.

On Sunday, 27 September 1981 in Washington DC, Zjilstra gave the main speech at the IMF’s annual “Per Jacobsson Lecture”. Zijlstra was chosen to give this speech to mark the fact that he was scheduled to retire at the end of 1981 from his role as President and Chairman of the BIS and as President of the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB). Note that Fritz Leutwiler of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) became BIS President and Chairman from January 1982 onwards, while Wim Duisenberg became President of the Dutch central bank in January 1982.

In his “Per Jacobsson Lecture” which was titled “Central Banking with the Benefit of Hindsight”, and which was given while the gold price had last traded that week at $450 per ounce, Zijlstra candidly told his Washington DC audience of fellow central bankers that:

“I feel that it is necessary for us, within the Group of Ten and Switzerland, to consider ways to regulate the price of gold, admittedly within fairly broad limits,so as to create conditions permitting gold sales and purchases between central banksas an instrument for a more rational management and deployment of their reserves.

On the occasion of the annual meeting of the IMF in 1979 this was brought up, but regrettably, insufficient agreement could be reached to make even a modest start with regulating the gold price in the free market.

It is my firm conviction that relatively small-scale interventions, though not forestalling the subsequent explosion of the gold price, would at least have reduced it to more manageable proportions.

Now that the turbulent emotions seem to have quietened down, we would be wise to reflect anew and without prejudice on these subjects.”

These quite extraordinary statements from Zjilstra while still BIS President illustrate that the desire of the BIS head to intervene in the gold market had not dwindled between early 1980 and the end of 1981. In fact, Zjilstra seemed to be indicating that the lower volatility in the gold price towards the end of 1981 provided a perfect opportunity to revisit the discussions with more chance of success in controlling the gold price.

Zjilstra “regretted” that “insufficient agreement could be reached” by the G10 and Switzerland on considering “ways to regulate the price of gold” in late 1979

Zjilstra was also convinced that “relatively small-scale interventions” would have reduced the gold price moves in January 1980 “to more manageable proportions“

Zjilstra advocated revisiting the topic of gold market intervention (“reflecting anew and without prejudice on these subjects“) sensing that “the turbulent emotions seem to have quietened down”.

This view of Zjilstra’s resonates with John Sangster’s comment in his 18 January 1980 report about the G5 Gold Briefs in which Sangster said:

“If tension eased substantially, however, central bank action need not then be unnecessary. With greater chance of success, it could be helpful in further cooling the inflationary environment.”

Given that Fritz Leutwiler of the Swiss national Bank took over the reins as BIS President in January 1982, and given that Leutwiler was arguably the most prominent of all the BIS governors as an advocate of a new BIS Gold Pool (see above and Part 1), then it would not be surprising if, under Leutwiler’s stewardship, the BIS inner club of Governor’s recommenced discussions of a BIS Gold Pool during the 1982 – 1983 timeframe.

First, there is the Meeting on the Gold Pool – 1983

During that time, Gordon Richardson was still Bank of England Governor, Karl Otto Pohl was still Bundesbank President, Fritz Leutwiler was still Swiss National Bank Chairman, and Paul Volcker was still Chairman of the US Federal Reserve. So, is there any evidence of a Gold Pool mentioned during this timeframe?

Fascinatingly, there is:

“Over A bratwurst-and-beer lunch on the top floor of the Bundesbank, Karl Otto Pohl, its president and a ranking governor of the BIS, complained to me in 1983 about the repetitiousness of the meetings during the “Basel weekend.”“First, there is the meeting on the Gold Pool, then, after lunch, the same faces show up at the G-10, and the next day there is the board which excludes the U.S., Japan, and Canada, and the European Community meeting which excludes Sweden and Switzerland.”

In 1983, investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein was given privileged access to the Bank for International Settlements and some of its inner sanctum central bank governors while he was writing an article on the BIS (“The Money Club”) for US magazine Harper’s.

In his Money Club article, Epstein writes:

“Artfully concealed within the shell of an international bank, like a series of Chinese boxes one inside another, are the real groups and services the central bankers need-and pay to support.

The first box inside the bank is the board of directors, drawn from the eight European central banks (England, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Sweden, and the Netherlands), which meets on the Tuesday morning of each “Basel weekend.“

To deal with the world at large, there is another Chinese box called the Group of Ten, or simply the “G-10.” It actually has eleven full-time members, representing the eight European central banks, the U.S. Fed, the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of Japan. It also has one unofficial member: the governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority.

“This powerful group, which controls most of the transferable money in the world, meets for long sessions on the Monday afternoon of the “Basel weekend.”

[Karl Otto Pohl] concluded: “They are long and strenuous-and they are not where the real business gets done.” This occurs, as Pohl explained over our leisurely lunch, at still another level of the BIS: “a sort of inner club.“

Bundesbank President Karl Otto Pohl is clearly on record in 1983 as stating that “First, there is the meeting on the Gold Pool“ during the “Basle weekend“. But the only publically known gold pool was the London Gold Pool which operated from November 1961 to March 1968.

Epstein interviewed the Bundesbank’s President Karl Otto Pohl in 1983, more than 15 years after the London Gold Pool had collapsed. Pohl only joined the Bundesbank in 1977, and he would not, in 1983, have used the term ‘Gold Pool’ for a meeting that had not discussed a gold pool since 1968, i.e. 15 years earlier. So what does this term ‘Gold Pool’ refer to?

Often Outnumbered, never Outgunned

“What is the ‘gold pool’ cited by BIS board member and Bundesbank President Karl Otto Pohl in his interview with the financial journalist Edward Jay Epstein published in the November 1983 edition of Harper’s magazine?”

The BIS initially responded to Schall with a classic ‘deflection and avoid answering the question’ response. The BIS wrote:

“Many thanks for your phone call and e-mail enquiry…

A detailed history of the Gold Pool, which operated between 1961 and 1968, can be found in Toniolo, Gianni (2005), ‚Central Bank Cooperation at the Bank for International Settlements,‘ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 375-81 and 410-23. This book should be available from most academic libraries covering finance and economics.”

Schall responded:

“Thank you for your response. However, it seems that you have not answered my question as to the ‘gold pool‘ that Mr. Pohl cited in his interview with Edward Jay Epstein. That interview took place many years after the London Gold Pool disbanded and it must have been the BIS‘ own gold pool.

Therefore, once again: what is the ‘gold pool‘ that Mr. Pohl was talking about in 1983?”

The BIS then replied again as follows:

“After further in-house research the following can be said about references to the’‚Gold Pool’:

The ‘Gold Pool‘ Mr Pohl referred to in the 1983 interview is clearly a bit of a misnomer. The (London) ‘Gold Pool‘ as such – i.e. as a mechanism to intervene actively in the gold market by buying and selling gold on behalf of the central banks – operated only between 1961 and 1968.

Out of the regular meetings of central bank gold and foreign exchange experts organized at the BIS between 1961 and 1968 to discuss the operations of the London Gold Pool grew the so-called G10 Group of Gold and Foreign Exchange Experts, which continued their regular meetings at the BIS after the London Gold Pool had been abandoned. But for quite some time after 1968 this group was still being referred to by some as the ‘Gold Pool’, although it didn’t have the operational role the London Gold Pool had. This forum still exists today — it was re-named the Markets Committee in 1999.

Thus, it should be clear that after 1968 the mandate of this Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee was no longer to discuss and agree on direct interventions on the gold market,but simply to monitor and discuss developments on the financial markets generally. This is the ‘Gold Pool‘ Mr Pohl refers to in his 1983 interview.

Frankly, this BIS response is risible and fabricated since Karl Otto Pohl only joined the Bundesbank in 1977 and had no dealings whatsoever with the 1960s gold pool so would never have referred to a meeting which had nothing to do with a gold pool as “the meeting on the Gold Pool“.

As former Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker famously said: “When it becomes serious, you have to lie“. The BIS response to Schall is also as hollow and misleading as a similar response the BIS sent to me when I asked for BIS documents on the Gold Pool discussions which took place in Jelle Zjilstra’s office in November and December 1979, meetings which are proven to have taken place. As a reminder, the BIS told me:

“The Gold Pool came to an end in 1968, so I take it that you are referring to meetings of the Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee. We do have some minutes for this meeting, but unfortunately not for the period which interests you.”

Many Modicums of Gold for the Saudis

Therefore, what sort of Gold Pool would the early 1980s gold Pool have been? Bank of England Governor, Gordon Richardson, a member of the BIS inner club of governors, was calling for “some exchange of gold for oil while the world adjusts”.

Bank of England gold and foreign exchange specialist John Sangster recommended a pool that would not have significant potential for recovery of gold sold, but that “would enable OPEC to acquire some modicum” of gold “without an excessive rise in the price.” It would involve “market intermediation” which would “allow the G10 to move with the price while attempting to control its pace.”

OPEC was “increasingly concerned that gold is outpacing oil”, and while Al Quraishi, Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) said that the Saudi’s “would not rock the boat” and buy gold on the open market if a new gold pool was selling, the Saudi’s still wanted to“diversify” into gold.

Incoming BIS President, Fritz Leutwiler “advocated central bank intervention in the gold market“. Outgoing BIS President Jelle Zjilstra wanted the G10 and Switzerland to “consider ways to regulate the price of gold, so as to create conditions permitting gold sales and purchases between central banks.“

Soviet – Kuwait Gold for Oil Deals

Gold for Oil sales were not just in the realm of theory even in 1979. They were fact. On 4 October 1979, the Governor’s office at the Bank of England wrote the following Secret briefing to the Bank of England Deputy Governor about Russian gold being exchange for Kuwaiti oil:

SECRET

4.10.79

THE DEPUTY GOVERNOR

Sir George Bolton phoned and asked me to mention to you that he had heard the following story from Washington.

It was attributed to the State Department and has two strands.

The Russians have sold one hundred tons of gold to Kuwait against payment in oil.

The Russians have suggested to the Government (?Central Bank) of Kuwait that they should act as agents for the Russians in buying oil against gold.

The day before this Secret memo was written, the New York Times reported from the IMF conference in Belgrade on 3 October 1979 in an article titled “Saudis Hint Oil Output May Drop – Dollar’s Eroding Value Cited at IMF Meeting” that:

“Saudi Arabia’s finance minister told a forum of international monetary officials and private bankers today that his country was considering new cutbacks in oil production because of the eroding value of the dollar.”

“It would be naive to pretend that a continuous erosion of our financial resources, through inflation and exchange depreciation, could not evoke reactions,” Sheik Abalkhail said.

“We have done this to maintain more orderly conditions in the oil market and to promote a higher level of sustained growth of the world economy. We are finding it increasingly difficult to continue our policies under prevailing instabilities in exchange markets, coupled with high levels of inflation in industrial countries.”

On 4 October1979, the New York Times again reported from the IMF conference in Belgrade in an article titled “Historical Linkage Cited For Gold and Oil Values” that:

“South Africa’s finance minister suggested today that there was a rough historical relationship between oil and gold prices.”

“Of the relationship between gold and oil, [Oren] Horwood declined to provide any explanation, saying ‘I simply note the fact’. The reaction of bankers here was that the relationship showed a constancy of real values against the background of gyrations in currencies.”

“Mr Horwood said that, as tracked over the last half-century, the price of gold per ounce was generally 15 times greater than the price of oil per barrel.”

Prior to the 1970s, the gold oil ratio was more static than the gold oil ratio since the 1970s for the simply fact that the gold price was fixed for a large period of time prior to the 1970s. However, the Gold to Oil ratio since 1970 has moved in a range of about 10 to 35, with a lengthy period during the 2000s when the ratio dipped below 10.

Conclusion – The BIS, Where Noone Can See

To me, the evidence suggests that a Gold Pool did evolve at the BIS in the early 1980s but that it has been extremely well hidden. If it did evolve, was its intent to control the gold price so that Saudi & Co could acquire gold on the open market without driving up the gold price, or was it a dual purpose operation of Western central banks to quell inflationary signals, while in the background transferring a portion of their substantial gold holdings to Saudi & Co in secretive BIS administered transactions? And did it fix the gold / oil ratio or attempt to target a range, while allowing the dollar price of gold and oil to seemingly fluctuate randomly? And where was the gold that was being provided to Saudi & Co coming from, central bank sales from the large western central bank gold holders?

The Bank of England’s Sangster said he did not want to“advocate gold for oil directly” but was advocating that OPEC “acquire some modicum” of gold “without an excessive rise in the price.” And Bank of England Governor Gordon Richardson was “looking towards some exchange of gold for oil while the world adjusts“. Remembering that given that the Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) was an unofficial member of the G10 at the BIS, then it is not implausible that the Saudis got what they wanted i.e. a chance to acquire real money in the form of gold in return for continuing to supply oil to the advanced Western economies.

Anyone familiar with the writings of “Another” on the USAGold website which appeared starting in October 1997 will recognise that this is exactly what “Another” said happened at the BIS, i.e. that the BIS fixed the gold/oil ratio so as to allow the Saudis to acquire gold even as they were receiving US dollars in payment for their oil exports.

In other words, that one leg of the BIS transactions took the form of behind the scenes gold transfers that flowed to Saudi & Co as subsidised payments for oil, thereby allowing the Saudis to receive payment in the ultimate money of gold in addition to fiat US dollars, while the other leg of the transactions allowed oil to continue to flow to the West. And lastly, that these arrangements, by also targeting the gold price, kept gold at an artificially low level which prevented gold fulfilling its traditional role of inflationary baramoter.

Anyone who reads ‘Another’ will see intriguing sentences such as follows, which just so happen to resonate with what BIS discussions and Bank of England documents were alluding to:

It was once said that “gold and oil can never flow in the same direction”

The BIS, instead of taking [gold] outright, places it where it’s needed!

In effect the governments are selling gold in any form to “KEEP IT” being used as ‘REAL MONEY” in oil deals!

Make no mistake, the BIS knows gold in the many thousands.

Not all oil producers can take advantage of this deal as it is done “where noone can see”.

Westerners should not be too upset with the CBs actions, they are buying you time!

Oil went from $30++ to $19 + X amount of gold! Today it costs $19 + XXX amount of gold (which according to some ‘Another’ experts, is a reference to the gold for oil agreement of the 1980s being renewed in the earlier 1990s at more favourable terms to the Saudis after the invasion of Kuwait)

All of this is presented in highly stylised but cryptic and ‘vague’ detail by Another & Friend of Another (FOA) on the USAGold website for those interested in reading it. I would tend to agree with what “Another” says, especially after having seen all of the discussions that took place at the BIS from the late 1970s onwards. The only question I would have is if the gold for oil deals are true, then “why the secrecy?” Why not make it public, and let the world adjust?

That article highlighted that the amount of gold stored in custody at the Bank of England (BoE) fell by 350 tonnes during the year to 28 February 2015, after also falling by 755 tonnes during the year to end of February 2014. Therefore, by 28 February 2015, there was, according to the BoE’s own statement, £140 billion or 5134.37 tonnes of gold in custody of the BoE, or in other words ~ 410,720 Good Delivery gold bars.

The article also reviewed snapshots of the total amount of gold stored in the London vaults at various recent points in time.

Firstly, a reference on the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) web site for a date sometime before 2013 stated that there had been 9,000 tonnes of gold (i.e. 720,000 Good Delivery bars) stored in London with two-thirds of this amount, or 6,000 tonnes, stored in the Bank of England (about 482,000 bars), and 3,000 tonnes stored in London ex Bank of England vaults (238,000 bars). (Nick Laird of Sharelynx subsequently pointed out to me that the earliest reference to this 9,000 tonne figure was from a LBMA presentation from November 2011.)

Secondly, by early 2014, the LBMA web site stated that there were only 7,500 tonnes of gold in all London vaults, i.e. ~600,000 bars, and of this total, three-quarters or 5,625 tonnes were at in Bank of England, ~ 450,000 bars, and only one-quarter or 1,875 tonnes was stored at LBMA London gold vaults excluding the Bank of England’s gold vaults.

So, the entire London market including the Bank of England had lost 1,500 tonnes (120,000 bars) between 2011 and early 2014, with 375 tonnes less in the BoE and 1,125 tonnes less in the London market outside the BoE.

Finally, on 15 June 2015, the LBMA stated that “There are ~500,000 bars in the London vaults, worth a total of ~US$237 billion”. This ~ 500,000 bars equates to 6,256 tonnes. (On 15th June 2015, the morning LBMA Gold Price was set at $1178.25, which would make $237 billion worth of gold equal to 201.145 million ounces, which is 6,256 tonnes).

Therefore, another ~1,250 tonnes of gold (approximately 100,000 Good Delivery bars) departed from the London gold vaults compared to the early 2014 quotation of 7,500 tonnes of gold in the London vaults.

So overall, between the 9,000 tonnes quotation in 2011, and the 6,256 tonnes 2015 quotation, some 2,750 tonnes (~ 220,000 Good Delivery bars) disappeared from the London gold vaults. With 6,256 tonnes of gold stored in the entire London vault network in 2015, and with 5,134 tonnes of this at the Bank of England, that would leave 1,122 tonnes of gold in London outside the Bank of England vaults.

To reiterate, “the London gold vaults“, in addition to the Bank of England gold vaults, refer to the storage vaults of JP Morgan and HSBC Bank in the City of London, the vaults of Brinks, Malca Amit and Via Mat (Loomis) located near London Heathrow Airport, the vault of G4S in Park Royal, and the Barclays vault managed by Brinks.

Because the Bank of England reveals in its annual report each year the value of gold it has stored in custody for its customers (central banks, international official sector institutions, and LBMA member banks), then it is possible to compare 3 years of gold tonnage figures, namely the years 2011, 2014 and 2015, and then show within each year how much of this gold is stored at the Bank of England, and how much is stored in London but outside the Bank of England vaults.

Nick Laird of www.sharelynx.com / www.goldchartsrus.com has done exactly this in the following sets of fantastic charts which he has created to graphically capture the above London gold trends, and a lot more besides. These charts are just a subset of a suite of inter-related gold charts that Nick has created to address this critical subject in the London Gold Market.

Although the Bank of England is not a LBMA member, the Bank of England gold vaults are a critical part of the LBMA gold vaulting and gold clearing system, and LBMA bullion banks maintain gold accounts with the Bank of England which facilitate, among other things, gold lending and gold swaps transactions with central banks. Hence the above and below charts are titled “LBMA Vaulted Gold in London”.

My “How many Good Delivery gold bars are in all the London Vaults” article had also quantified that nearly all of this ~1,122 tonnes consists of gold from physical gold-backed ETFs which store their gold in the London vaults. (previously rounded up to 1,125 tonnes for ease of calculation).

I had included 5 gold ETFs in my previous analysis namely, SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), Shares Gold Trust (IAU), ETF Securities – ETFS Physical Gold ETF (PHAU & PHGP), ETF Securities – Gold Bullion Securities (GBS & GBSS), and Source Physical Gold ETC (P-ETC), and also some smaller holdings at BullionVault and GoldMoney. In total these ETFs and other holdings accounted for just over 1,000 tonnes of gold in the London market.

However, I had missed a few other gold ETFs which also store their gold in the London vaults. Nick Laird, whose Sharelynx website maintains up-to-date gold ETF data and gold holdings, took the initiative to fill in the missing ETF blanks and Nick re-calculated the more comprehensive ETF holdings figures for London, which worked out at an exact 1,116 tonnes of gold, astonishingly close to the implied figure represented by the 1,122 tonnes outside the Bank of England vaults.

The additional gold backed ETFs also included in Nick Laird’s wider catchment were Deutsche Bank db Physical Gold ETC and associated Deutsche ETFs, ABSA gold ETF (of South Africa), Merk Gold ETF, and some smaller holdings from Betashares and Standard Bank. The following chart from Sharelynx shows the full data for physically backed gold ETFs storing their gold in London:

We then discussed an approach, in conjunction with Koos Jansen and Bron Suchecki, to identify known central bank gold stored in the Bank of England vaults by tallying up this storage data on a country level basis. So, for example, assuming 5,134 tonnes of gold stored at the Bank of England in early 2015, the aim would be to try to account for as much of this gold as possible using central bank sources.

As mentioned in the ‘How many gold bars‘ article, the Bank of England stated in 2014 that 72 central banks (including a few official sector financial organisations) held gold accounts with the Bank. It is not known if any of these gold accounts are inactive or whether any of these accounts have zero gold holdings. The LBMA stated in 2011 that “The Bank of England acts as gold custodian for about 100 customers, including central banks and international financial institutions, LBMA members and the UK government”. Therefore there could also be more than 25 LBMA member commercial banks with gold accounts at the Bank of England.

Some of the Bank of England 5,134 tonne total would therefore be gold held in LBMA member bank gold accounts at the Bank of England, for which data is not public. Likewise, a lot of central banks do not reveal where their gold is stored, let alone how much is stored in specific vaults such as at the Bank of England and Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

However, many central banks have more recently begun to provide some information on where they say their official reserve gold is stored. Other central banks have always been to some extent transparent. Overall, a variety of sources, where possible, can be used to source locational data regarding central bank gold storage locations. There will continue to be gaps however, since some central banks remain non-cooperative, even when asked directly about where they stored their gold.

Tallying this type of central bank gold storage data will probably be a work in progress. However, there has to be a cut-off point for doing a first pass through the data, and this is a first pass. As a group, the European central banks have been especially forthcoming with gold storage data, compared to even 3-4 years ago (except for Spain). For other central banks, I looked in various places such as their financial accounts, and I contacted some of them by email with varying degrees of success. About half of the 72 central banks on the Bank of England’s list were identified, again, with varying degrees of accuracy.

The following fantastic chart by Nick Laird captures an overview of this Bank of England gold storage data. Essentially the chart shows that the banks listed hold, or have stated that they hold, the respective quantity listed, and in total the named banks could account for x tonnes gold stored at the bank of England. This is labelled ‘Known Gold‘. Given ‘Known Gold’, this leaves the residual as ‘Unknown Gold‘.

The remainder of this article explains the logic and the sources behind each country, and why that country appears on the list. When a central bank claims to have stored gold at the Bank of England, or the evidence suggests that, it does not necessarily mean that the gold in question is held in custody in a gold set aside account or that it is allocated in identifiable bars, or even that it is actually there. Many central banks engage in gold lending, or have done so in the last 15-20 years, and have at times, or permanently, transferred control of that gold to LBMA bullion banks.

Until all central banks come clean about what form their gold holdings are in, which will never happen, then the amount of central bank gold that’s encumbered by bullion banks or under claims, liens, loan agreements etc will not be apparent.

FINLAND

GERMANY

Germany holds 3,384 tonnes of gold, and 12.9%, or 438 tonnes are stored at the Bank of England. The Bundesbank’s ongoing repatriation of gold from New York and Paris does not alter the amount of Bundesbank gold held at the Bank of England.

“Most of Danmarks Nationalbank’s gold is stored at the Bank of England, where it has been since it was moved for safety reasons during the Cold War. In March 2014, Danmarks Nationalbank inspected its stock of gold in the Bank of England.”

Therefore, the assumption here is that 62.7 tonnes of Danish gold is stored at the Bank of England.

Note the Danmarks Nationalbank’s assertion that in order for gold to be lent it has to be moved to the London, since London is the centre of the gold lending market.

In 1999 “Almost 99 per cent, or 93 per cent of the Nationalbank’s total gold stock, had been lent.” The same 1999 Danish central bank article also said that:

I have underlined the above sentence since it’s of critical importance to understanding that in gold lending, central bank gold lent to LBMA bullion banks at the Bank of England does not necessarily move out of the Bank of England vaults. Lent gold may or may not move out the door, depending on what the borrower plans to do with the borrowed gold.

It also means that the total gold in custody figure that the Bank of England reveals each year (for example £140 billion in February 2015), consists of:

a) central bank gold stored at the Bank of England

b) bullion bank gold stored at the Bank of England

c) central bank gold that has been lent or swapped with bullion banks (gold deposits and gold swaps) and that has not been moved out of the Bank of England vaults. This category of gold is still in custody at the Bank of England. The central bank claims to still own it, the bullion bank has control over it, and the Bank of England still counts it as being in its custody.

Netherlands

The Netherlands holds 612.5 tonnes of gold, and 18%, or 110 tonnes are stored at the Bank of England.

United Kingdom

Notice that the UK gold reserves includes holdings of gold coin, as well as gold bars.

Ireland

Ireland hold 6 tonnes of gold in its official reserves, a small amount of which is in the form of gold coins, but nearly all of which is in the form of gold bars stored at the Bank of England.

Recently, I submitted a Freedom of information (FOI) request to the Central Bank of Ireland requesting information such as a weight list of Ireland’s gold stored at the Bank of England. After the FOI request was refused and the Central Bank of Ireland claimed there was no weight list, I appealed the refusal and was provided with a SWIFT ‘account statement’ from 2010 that the Bank of England had provided to the Central Bank of Ireland. See below:

Central Bank of Ireland – gold bars at the Bank of England

This statement shows that as of 31 December 2010, the Central Bank of Ireland held 453 gold bars at the Bank of England with a total fine ounce content of 182,555.914 ounces, which equates to an average gold content of 402.993 fine ounces per bar. It also equates to 5.678 tonnes, which rounded up is 5.7 tonnes of gold stored at the Bank of England.

The fact that no weight list could be tracked down is highly suspicious, as is the fact that Ireland had in earlier years engaged in gold lending, so did not, at various times in the 2000s have all of its gold allocated in the Bank of England. How a central bank can claim to hold gold bars but at the same time cannot request a weight list of those same bars is illogical and suggests there is a lot more that the Central Bank of Ireland will not reveal.

Belgium

Belgium holds 227 tonnes of gold, most of which is stored at the Bank of England with smaller amounts held with the Bank of Canada and with the Bank for International Settlements. Banque Nationale de Belgique (aka Nationale Bank van België (NBB)) does not publish an exact breakdown of the percentage stored at each location, however, in March 2013 in the Belgian Parliament, the deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance gave the following response in answer to a question about the Belgian gold reserves:

“Most of the gold reserves of the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) is indeed held with the Bank of England. A much smaller amount held with the Bank of Canada and the Bank for International Settlements. A very limited amount stored in the National Bank of Belgium.”

Furthermore, there were a series of reports in late 2014 and early 2015 that would suggest that Belgium stores 200 tonnes of its gold at the Bank of England. Firstly, in December 2014, VTM-nieuws in Belgium reported that the NBB governor Luc Coene had said that the NBB was investigating repatriating all of its gold. See Koos Jansen article here.

On 4 February 2015, Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad said that Belgium would repatriate 200 tonnes of gold from the Bank of England, but the next day on 5 February 2015, another Belgian newspaper De Tijd reported that NBB Luc Coene denied the repatriation report, and quoted him as saying:

“There are other and more effective ways to verify if the gold in London is really ours. We have an audit committee that inspects the Belgian gold in the UK regularly”.

Therefore, the assumption here, backed up by evidence, is that Belgium stores 200 tonnes of gold at the Bank of England.

Australia

Australia holds approximately 80 tonnes of gold in its official reserves, with 1 tonne on loan, and 99.9% of gold holdings stored at the Bank of England. See 2014 annual report, page 33. According to a weight list of its gold held at the Bank of England, released via an FOIA request in 2014, Australia stores approximately 78.8 tonnes of gold at the Bank of England.

South Korea

South Korea (Bank of Korea) holds 104.4 tonnes of gold, 100% of which, or 104.4 tonnes is stored at the Bank of England. The Bank confirmed this to me in an emailon 11 September 2015. See email here ->

Bank of Korea (BOK) – location of gold reserves

International Monetary Fund

The IMF currently claims to hold 2,814 tonnes of gold after apparently selling 403.3 tonnes over 2009 and 2010 (222 tonnes in ‘off-market transactions and 181.3 tonnes in ‘on-market transactions’). Prior to 2009, IMF gold holdings had been 3,217 tonnes, and had been essentially static at this figure since 1980 [In 1999 IMF undertook some accounting related gold sale transactions which where merely sale and buyback bookkeeping transactions].

Although the IMF no longer provide a breakdown of how much of its gold is stored in each location where it stores gold, the amount of gold held by the IMF at the Bank of England can be calculated by retracing IMF transactions from a time when the IMF did provide such details. In January 1976, the IMF held 898 tonnes of gold at the Bank of England in London, 3,341 tonnes at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 389 tonnes at the Banque de France in Paris, and 144 tonnes at the Reserve Bank of India in Nagpur, India. Therefore, of the IMF’s total 4,772 tonnes holdings at that time, 70% was stored in New York, 19% in London, 8% in Paris and 3% in India. See here and here.

In the late 1970s, the IMF sold 50 million ounces of gold via two methods, namely, 25 million ounces by ‘public’ auctions, and 25 million ounces by distributions to member countries.

In the four-year period between mid-1976 and mid-1980, the IMF sold 25 million ounces of gold to the commercial sector via 45 auctions. Thirty five of these auctions delivered gold at the FRBNY, 7 of these auctions delivered gold at the Bank of England, and 3 of the auctions delivered gold at the Banque de France.

The IMF also sold 25 million ozs of gold to its member countries within four tranches over the 3 year period from January 1977 to early 1980. These sales, which were also called gold ‘distributions’ or ‘restitutions’ and covered between 112 and 127 member countries across the tranches, were initially quite complicated in the way they were structured since they involved IMF rules around quotas which necessitated the gold being transferred to creditor countries of the IMF and then transferred to the purchasing countries. In the later sales in 1979 and 1980 countries could purchase directly from the IMF.

Countries could choose where to receive their purchased gold, i.e. London, New York, Paris or Nagpur, however, the US, UK, France and India, which had the largest IMF quotas and hence the largest gold distributions, all had to receive their gold at the respective IMF depository in their own country. I don’t have the distribution figures to hand at the moment for the 25 million ozs sold to countries, but about 18 countries took delivery from the Banque de France in Paris, with the rest choosing delivery from New York and London.

Therefore an assumption is needed on the amount of gold the IMF ‘distributed’ to member countries from its Bank of England holdings between 1977 and 1980. Of the 25 million ounces distributed, the US received 5.734 million ozs, the UK received 2.396 million ozs (75 tonnes), France received 1.284 million ozs, and India received 805,000 ozs. Subtracting all of these from 25 million ozs leaves 14.78 million ozs which was distributed to the other ~120 countries. Since the IMF held 70% of its holdings at the FRBNY in 1976, 19% at the Bank of England and 8% at the Banque de France, apportioning these three weights to the remaining 14.78 million ozs would result in 10.76 million ozs (332 tonnes) being sold from the FRBNY, 2.867 million ozs (89 tonnes) from the Bank of England and 1.24 million ozs (38.5 tonnes) from the Banque de France.

Adding this 89 tonnes to the 75 tonnes received by the UK would be 164 tonnes distributed from the Bank of England IMF gold holdings. Add to this the 116 tonnes of London stored IMF gold sold in the auctions equals 280 tonnes. Subtracting this 280 tonnes from the IMF’s London holdings of 898 tonnes in January 1976 leaves 618 tonnes.

In 2009 the IMF said that it had sold 200 tonnes of gold to India, 2 tonnes to Mauritius, 10 tonnes to Sri Lanka,and then 10 tonnes to Bangladesh in 2010. The Bangladesh figures reflect its 10 tonne purchase. However, at the moment, there has been no exact confirmation that the 200 tonnes that India bought is in London. It probably is in London, but leaving this amount under the IMF holdings instead of in India’s holdings makes no difference. Subtracting the Bangladesh sale of 10 tonnes, and rounding down slightly, there are 600 tonnes of IMF gold (excluding the 2009 India 200 tonnes sale) storedat the Bank of England.

The IMF sales of gold to Sri Lanka and Mauritius in 2009 of a combined total of 12 tonnes probably came out of the IMF’s London holdings also. The IMF’s sale of 181.3 tonnes of gold in 2010 via ‘on-market transactions’ may also have come out of the IMF’s London stored gold. These ‘on-market transactions” look to have used the BIS as pricing agent, and the IMF have gone to great lengths to hide the full details of these sales from public view. More about that in a future article.

India

The Reserve Bank of India holds 557.75 tonnes of gold. Of this total, a combined 265.49 tonnes are stored (outside India) at the Bank of England and with the Bank for International Settlements. In 2009 India purchased 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF via an ‘off-market transaction‘. A slide from this presentation sums up this information.

The questions then are, is the 200 tonne purchase from the IMF stored at the Bank of England, and how much of the earlier 65.49 tonnes is stored at the Bank of England.

Reserve Bank of India – gold held outside India

A 2013 article in the Indian Business Standard which was reprinted from “Reserve Bank of India history series. Volume 4, 1981-1997, Part A”, explains that in 1991, the Reserve Bank of India entered 2 separate gold loan deals, one deal with UBS in Switzerland (which required 18.36 tonnes of RBI gold to be sent to Switzerland) and the other deal with the Bank of England and Bank of Japan (where 46.91 tonnes was required to be sent to the Bank of England). Together those 2 transactions equals 65.27 tonnes which is 0.222 tonnes short of the 65.49 total.

After the gold loan deals expired, it looks like 18.36 tonnes of Indian gold were left in Switzerland and transferred to safekeeping or deposit with the BIS, and 46.91 tonnes of Indian gold was left at the Bank of England.

Regarding India’s purchase of 200 tonnes of gold in 2009, the IMF only has gold 4 depositories, namely, the Bank of England, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Banque de France, and the Reserve Bank of India in Nagpur, India. Given that the Indian gold stored abroad is “with the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements“, then for the 200 tonnes of IMF gold to end up being classified as ‘with’ the BIS, it would have to have either been transferred internally at one of the IMF depositories to aBIS account, or transferred via a location swap or a physical shipment to a BIS gold account at the vaults of the Swiss National Bank in Berne.

For now, the 200 tonnes of gold sold by the IMF to India in 2009 is reflected in the IMF holdings and not the India holdings. It does not make a difference to the calculations, since the 200 tonnes is still at the Bank of England.

Bulgaria

Bulgaria has 40.1 tonnes of official gold reserves. The latest BNB annual report states that 513,000 ozs are in standard gold form, and 775,000 ozs are in gold deposits.

Bank for International Settlements

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), headquartered in Basle, Switzerland does not have run any gold vaults of its own. However, the BIS is a big player in the global central bank gold market, and it offers its central bank clientele gold safekeeping (and settlement) services using central bank vaults in London, New York and Berne. These services are possible because the BIS maintains gold accounts at the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Swiss National Bank in Berne. BIS gold accounts can act like omnibus accounts in that many central banks can hold gold in sub-accounts under a BIS gold account at each of these institutions in London, New York and Berne.

Gold can then be transferred around locations using gold swaps where one of the counterparties to the gold swap is the BIS.

BIS gold services to the global central bank market

The BIS is involved with gold in 3 main categories.

a) the BIS holds gold in custody for customers, off of the BIS balance sheet

b) the BIS has its own gold holdings which are classified as its gold investment portfolio, and which are on its balance sheet

c) the BIS accepts gold deposits from central banks. These gold deposits appear as a liability on the BIS balance sheet. Then the BIS turns around and places these gold liabilities in the market under its own name. These placing are also in the form of gold deposits and gold loans with other institutions including commercial banks. These ‘assets’ are then classified on the BIS balance sheet as BIS’ “gold banking” assets.

a) In its latest annual report, as of the end of March 2015, the BIS stated that it holds 443 tonnes of gold under earmark for its central bank customers on a custody basis. This gold is not on the BIS balance sheet. i.e. it is ‘off-balance sheet’ gold held by the BIS.

Bank for International Settlements – Off-Balance sheet gold in custody for customers

b) The BIS also holds 108 tonnes of its own gold (on balance sheet within an investment portfolio). This BIS gold is either kept in custody or transferred to bullion banks as gold deposits. The BIS does not provide granular data in its annual report as to how much of its own gold is ever put into gold deposits.

c) As of 31 March 2015, the BIS had 510 tonnes of gold assets on its balance sheet. Of this total, 108 tonnes was the BIS’ own gold, leaving 403 tonnes as banking assets (i.e. customer gold . Of this same 510 tonnes total, 55 tonnes were classified as gold loans, so 457 tonnes were not gold loans. If all 55 tonnes of gold loans were from customer gold, this would leave 348 tonnes of customer backed gold banking assets. On the same date (31 March 2015), the BIS held 356 tonnes of gold deposits from customers (sight deposits and short-term deposits) on the liability side of its balance sheet which originate entirely from central banks depositing gold with the BIS in sight and term deposits.

The question then is how to reflect BIS gold storage holdings at the Bank of England. While most if not all gold deposit transactions between central banks/BIS and bullion banks take place in London, the data is not readily published.

It was therefore decided, in the spirit of being conservative, to make an assumption on the BIS gold, and only use BIS customer custody gold and BIS own gold as inputs, and because BIS has gold accounts with 3 vaults (London, NY and Berne), to then just divide by 3 and say that one-third of BIS own gold and one-third of BIS ‘central bank custody gold’ is in London This would be 183.66 tonnes, i.e. (108+443)/3.

Therefore, this model states that 183.66 tonnes of BIS gold is stored in the Bank of England. This is probably being very conservative, especially given that no on-balance gold deposited by BIS customers is reflected in this figure.

Bangladesh

In September 2010, the IMF sold 10 tonnes of gold to Bangladesh Bank, bringing total gold holdings up from 3.5 tonnes to 13.5 tonnes. The fact that this gold is stored at the Bank of England shows that the IMF sold this gold from its holdings that were stored at the Bank of England. (Note, Bangladesh has recently added some small amounts of domestic confiscated gold to its reserves).

Mexico

Mexico’s central bank, Banco de Mexico (Banxico) currently hold 122.1 tonnes of gold. At the end of 2012, Mexican official gold reserves totalled 4,034,802 ounces (125 tonnes), of which only 194,539 ounces (6 tonnes) was in Mexico, and 119 tonnes abroad.

With Banxico now holding 122 tonnes according to the World Gold Council, and not 125 tonnes, the assumption is that the 3 tonne reduction came from domestic holdings.

Banxico – location of gold reserves

Poland

Poland holds 102.9 tonnes of gold in its reserves. Poland’s central bank (Narodowi Bank Polski (NBP)) published a guide to Poland’s gold in 2014 in which it confirmed that nearly all of its gold is at the Bank of England. See pages 86-90 of the guide.

“How much gold did Poland possess before 1998? Approximately 746,463 ounces, of which almost 721 thousand was invested in deposits in commercial banks. In turn, the gold kept in the country was mainly coins, gold bars and various types of gold “scrap” bought by NBP.” (page 86)

Before 1998, only 25,463 ozs of NBP gold was kept in Poland, and 721,000 ozs (22.43 tonnes) was deposited with bullion banks. Poland then bought 80 tonnes of gold in 1998, bringing its gold reserves up to nearly 103 tonnes. The purchase was done as follows:

“…we used the services of a bank which constantly carries out similar transactions. Next, we made a location swap and the whole of NBP’s foreign gold reserves were deposited onto our account in the Bank of England.” (page 88)

It is likely that the NBP is referring to the BIS as the bank which purchased the gold on behalf of Poland, and then transferred it from one of the BIS gold accounts at the Bank of England to the NBP gold account at the Bank of England.

So that is 102.9 tonnes stored at the Bank of England.

Note also that, the Polish central bank explains that “It can be assumed that the gold that has been placed on the market at any time is precisely the gold that is held by the central banks in London“. In other words, central banks that have places gold on deposit (lent it) have done so with gold that they have stored in the Bank of England. See the following screenshot:

Narodowi Bank Polski – location of gold reserves

Note 6.1 on page 136 of the 2013 NBP annual report states:

“Gold and gold receivables The item comprises gold stored at NBP and deposited in a foreign bank account. As at 31 December 2013, NBP held 3,308.9 thousand ounces of gold (102.9 tonnes).”

This statement about the “gold stored at NBP and deposited in a foreign bank account” has been in a few of the recent NBP annual reports. In April 2013, before the NBP had published the guide to its gold, I asked the NBP by email, based on the statement, to clarify if the gold held abroad is held in custody, for example at the Bank of England or FRBNY or held in time deposits with commercial banks?”

The NBP responded: “Narodowy Bank Polski does not make gold time deposits with commercial banks”.

This may be true if the NBP is using sight deposits, but the 2013 answer, like so many other central banks currently, avoided providing any real information to the question.

Given that nearly all NBP’s 102.9 tonnes of gold was in the Bank of England when the 80 tonnes purchase was made in 1998, the assumption here is that still is the case, and that for simplicity, 100 tonnes of Poland’s gold is at the Bank of England.

Romania

Romania has 103.7 tonnes of gold in its official reserves.

National Bank of Romania – distribution of gold reserves

In percentage terms, as at 31 December 2014, 27% of Romania’s gold was in ‘standard form’ which presumably means Good Delivery Bars (400 oz bars), 14% in gold coins, and 59% in ‘Deposits’ abroad. (59% of 103.7 tonnes is 61.2 tonnes)

Note the gold deposits with Bank of Nova Scotia and Fortis Bank Bruxelles in 2005 and additionally with the same two banks and with Barclays and Morgan Stanley NY in 2004.

Since the percentage breakdownbetween Romania’s bullionbankdeposits (59%), standardbars (27%) and coins (14%) hasn’t varied much since 2005, and was at a similar mix over various years that I checked such as 2011 and 2014, the conclusion is that Romania has had more than 50% of its gold on constant deposit since at least 2004 (i.e. the original allocated gold is long gone).

The 2005 annual report also states that there were 61 tonnes of Romanian gold stored at the Bank of England. Since Romania had just under 105 tonnes of gold in 2005, this 61 tonnes was referring to the gold deposits, which central banks, as illustrated in numerous other examples, continue to count as their gold even though it has been lent to bullion banks.

Romania therefore had or has 61 tonnes of gold stored at the bank of England.

Note also the reference to central vault, which probably refers to a vault in Bucharest.

Philippines

The Philippines hold 225 tonnes of gold in its official reserves. In November 2000, when the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) held 225 tonnes of gold, it explained in a press release titled ‘Shipment of Gold Reserves‘ that it ended up storing 95% of its gold at the Bank of England due to the use of location swaps with a counterparty (probably the BIS) that took delivery of BSP gold, and transferred gold to the BSP account at the Bank of England.

Bangko Sentral Philippines – 95% gold at Bank of England

Since 2000, the BSP gold reserves have risen, fallen, and risen again and now total 195 tonnes. Assuming the ‘95% of its gold’ storage arrangement is still in place, then the Philippines has 95% of 195 tonnes, or 185 tonnes stored at the Bank of England.

Greece

Greece claims to hold 112.6 tonnes of gold. In 2013, the Greek finance ministry on behalf of the Greek central bank stated that half of Greece’s gold reserves were ‘under custody’ of the Bank of Greece, and the other half was ‘under custody’ of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), the Bank of England and (very vaguely) Switzerland. Who actually controls Greece’s gold reserves at this point in time is anybody’s guess.

Given that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was listed by the Greek MinFin as a foreign gold storage location ahead of the Bank of England, the assumption here is that of the 50% of Greece’s gold held abroad, the FRBNY holds more of this portion than the Bank of England. And so the assumption is that the Bank of England holds 40% of the foreign half, i.e. 20% of the total of Greece’s gold, with the FRBNY holding 50% of the foreign half. Taking 112 tonnes of gold as Greece’s total gold holding, 40% of this is 22.4 tonnes stored at the Bank of England. (Note, Greek gold reserves keep increasing incrementally each month by small amounts. As I am not sure what these increases relates to, a recent rounded figure of 112 tonnes has been chosen).

Italy

The Banca d’Italia holds 2.451.8 tonnes of gold. Although in 2014, the Banca d’Italia released a document in which it confirmed that some of this gold is held at the Bank of England, there is no evidence to suggest that Italy’s gold in London amounts to more than a few tonnes left over from 1960s transactions.

Bank of England gold set-aside ledgers show that in 1969 there were less than 1000 ‘Good Delivery’ gold bars in the Banca d’Italia gold account at the Bank of England, weighing less than 400,000 ozs in total. This is equal to about 12 tonnes. Most of the Italian gold at the Bank of England was flown back to Rome (and Milan) in the 1960s.

Since there is no public documentation that Banca d’Italia has ever engaged in gold lending (as far as I am aware), then there would be no need for Italy to keep a lot of gold at the Bank of England. Nearly all of Italy’s foreign held gold (over 1,200 tonnes) looks to be in New York (assuming it hasn’t been swapped or used as loan collateral). Italy could have engaged in non-public gold transactions from the Bank of England using gold location swaps from the FRBNY, or from Rome, but there is no evidence of this.

So, this model assumes 12 tonnes of Italian gold is stored at the Bank of England.

Brazil

Brazil hold 67.2 tonnes of gold reserves. In 2012, Banco Central do Brasil told me by email that all of its gold reserves were in the form of ‘fixed term gold deposits at commercial banks only’. Since the gold would be required to be stored at the Bank of England for these gold deposit transactions to take place, Brazil therefore holds 67.2 tonnes of gold at the Bank of England. See email below:

Banco Central do Brasil – gold deposits

Ecuador

Banco Central del Ecuador conducted a 3 year gold swap with Goldman Sachs in June 2014 where it swapped 466,000 ozs for US dollar cash This swapped amount of gold has been factored into the World Gold Council data for Ecuador, and the Ecuadorian reserves dropped by 14.5 tonnes in Q2 2014. from 23.28 tonnes to 11.78 tonnes. This swapped amount of 14.5 tonnes is most probably stored at the Bank of England, since Goldman Sachs proposed a similar deal with Venezuela in 2014 where the gold was required to be at the Bank of England for the swap to be initiated.

Bolivia

Bolivia Central de Bolivia holds 42.5 tonnes of gold, all of which is permanently on deposit with bullion banks. The Bolivian Central Bank is very transparent in explaining where its gold is ‘invested’. Hence, it has (until recently) even provided in its financial accounts, the names of the bullion banks which happened to hold its ‘gold deposits’ and the amounts held by each bank.

Banco Central de Bolivia

A recent Banco Central de Bolivia report for 2014 is less revealing and only shows the country distribution of the gold deposits, with 39% in the UK and the rest in France. While this probably refers to the headquarters of the actual bullion banks in question, i.e. Natixis is French etc, it could mean the gold is being attributed to the Bank of England and the Banque de France, so, a conservative approach here is to attribute 39% of 42.5 tonnes to the Bank of England, i.e. 16.6 tonnes stored at the Bank of England.

Banco Central de Bolivia

Peru

Peru holds 34.7 tonnes of gold in its official reserves.

At the end of December 2013, Banco Central de Reserva del Peru held 552,191 ounces (17 tonnes) of gold coins which were stored in the Bank’s own vault, and 562,651 troy ounces of “good delivery” gold bars (17.5 tonnes) which were stored in banks abroad, of which 249,702 ounces were in custody and 312,949 ounces in the form of short-term interest bearing deposits. See 2013 annual report.

Since the gold bars are all ‘good delivery’ bars (which is not the case at the FRBNY), and since Peru has still recently been engaging in gold lending, then the evidence suggests that 17.5 tonnes of Peru’s gold is stored at the Bank of England.

Latvia

Latvia hold 6.62 tonnes of gold in its official reserves after joining the Euro on 1 January 2014 and after transferring just over 1 tonne of gold to the European Central Bank (ECB). All of Latvia’s gold is stored at the Bank of England, therefore Latvia stores 6.62 tonnes of gold at the Bank of England.

Before this transfer of gold to the ECB, Latvia had 248,706 ozs of gold, and it transferred 35,322 ozs to ECB, leaving 213,384 ozs.

European Central Bank

The ECB holds 504.8 tonnes of gold. This gold was transferred by the Euro members to the ECB at the launch of the Euro by 1 January 1999. All the ECB gold is de-centrally managed, meaning that it stays where it was when transferred and is still locally ‘managed’ by the bank which transferred that gold to the ECB. Some banks may have transferred gold stored at FRBNY in fulfillment of their requirement, some banks may have transferred gold at the BoE, and countries such as France and Italy may have transferred amounts which are still stored at Banque de France and Banca d’Italia etc. Some of the ECB gold, such as the smaller amount transferred by Latvia, is in the Bank of England. Other amounts of the ECB’s gold are most certainly also at the Bank of England in London.

It would be a separate project to track these transfers. The 1 tonne of Latvian gold transferred to the ECB at the start o 2014 was included in the figures here just as a placeholder, so as to acknowledge that ECB gold is at the Bank of England. Given that the Euro is a competing currency to the US Dollar, the ECB may have more gold than not stored in Europe and not at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, since ECB gold would logically be safer not stored in the main Reserve Bank of a competing currency bloc.

In its 2014 annual report, the Bank of Iceland said that “The Bank resumed lending gold for investment purposes in June 2014“, and “The Bank loaned gold to foreign financial institutions during the year”.

The Bank of Iceland lent 99.7% of its gold during 2014 because this is the percentage of the gold reserves which are not payable on demand, but are payable in less than 3 months. See below screenshot.

Central Bank of Iceland – gold deposits

For the purposes of this exercise, Iceland stores 2 tonnes of gold at the Bank of England.

Ghana

Ghana’s central bank, the Bank of Ghana, holds 8.7 tonnes of gold in its official reserves (precisely 280,872.439 ozs). Of this total, 39.3%, or 3.42 tonnes is held at the Bank of England, with 27.5% at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and 29.5% with investment bank UBS. See 2014 annual report.

Interestingly, Ghana refers to its gold account at the Bank of England as a ‘gold set aside’ account, which is the correct name for a Bank of England gold custody account of allocated gold. Probably more interestingly is that most central banks do not use this ‘set aside’ term.

Conclusion

A number of central banks refuse to confirm the location of their gold reserves. I will document this in a future posting. Some of the large holders undoubtedly hold quite a lot of gold at the Bank of England, as do a number of smaller holders. Countries that could fit into this category include Spain, France, Colombia, Lithuania, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Pakistan, Egypt, Slovenia, Macedonia, Malaysia, Thailand and South Africa. In fact any central bank which has engaged in gold lending is a candidate for having some of its gold stored at the Bank of England.

Spanish people take note. Spain refused to say where its 281.6 tonnes of gold is stored, and Banco de España has the dubious record of being Europe’s least transparent bank as regards gold reserves storage locations. Maybe a project for Spanish journalists.

Banque de France keeps 9% of its 2,435 tonnes of gold reserves abroad, and has in the past engaged in gold lending. So this 9%, or 219 tonnes, is probably stored at the Bank of England.

The ECB and BIS no doubt have more gold stored at the Bank of England than the figures currently reflect. This would also increase the ‘known gold’ total. Egypt is another country which has had a gold set aside account at the Bank of England so is in my view an obvious candidate for the list.

Adding to the known total is therefore a work in progress.

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About Ronan Manly

Ronan Manly is an investment professional and research analyst originally from Ireland. Ronan's aim in this blog is to shine a spotlight on the monetary gold market by sharing research and observations.